


It's You Because No One Else Made Sense

by EthelPhantom



Series: Ethel's Constagami/DamiGami December 2020 [6]
Category: Constantine (TV), DCU, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Abandonment, Alternate Universe - Game, Alternate Universe - Program, Angst and Feels, Constagami December, F/M, Games, MariBat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27938272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EthelPhantom/pseuds/EthelPhantom
Summary: Constagami December 2020, Day 6: "I always win."So maybe he should finally get that him and programs together never ended well, and that is just the truth. Maybe he should have realised that quite a while ago.He didn't.
Relationships: John Constantine/Kagami Tsurugi
Series: Ethel's Constagami/DamiGami December 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035531
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	It's You Because No One Else Made Sense

There is a game that most people know of. A program, and a rather new one at that — or is it?

_ Mirror.  _ That is what people call it. It is what the creators of the game call it. No one is certain where the name came from, but either way, that is how it simply is. Originally, it had a different name, “Sword for Love”, but after that, it has always simply been called Mirror.

So, indeed, the producers of the game call it Mirror as well. In fact, because even the Lexcorp, its _creator,_ advertises it as Mirror nowadays, very few people even recall the time it was called by its original, true name. 

...Or, is it the true name of the program, after all?

Was it ever its  _ (her)  _ true name?

The point of the game — and thus the program — is to make the game, the “Mirror” fall in love with the player. That is all it is about. 

The thing about Mirror is, it ( _ she. Please)  _ isn’t easy to beat — in fact, there has, up to date, not been a single person to win. Not a single person has been determined enough to defeat Mirror, and at this point, nearly everyone knows about it. It doesn’t mean they don’t still want to play - It is a good company, smart, open-minded (can that even be said about programs?), and is an all-around good conversationalist. No one can comprehend how much work the Lexcorp must have put into it ( _ her _ , Mirror reminds, it uses she/her pronouns, please do not refer to her as an ‘it’,  _ it is offensive to me _ ) because it ( _ she, please do not forget this)  _ is merely a program, nothing more.

If that isn’t enough, most people play it for fun. They play it because they are bored, because they want to kill time. They aren’t serious about winning it. It isn’t too surprising that this also means they do not put enough effort into it. Obviously, this, in turn, means they cannot win. There is no way to win Mirror if the player doesn’t put effort into beating it  _ (she. I do not know how many times I must point this out to you.) _

And eventually, everyone stops trying. 

What no one ever realises is that they are not trying to beat a game, a program. There is no artificial intelligence involved, not really.

There is no game or program to beat, and there has never been one. The Mirror is hardly anything as simple as a mere game.

There is an excellent reason as to why no one can figure out how to beat Mirror; no one has figured out how to achieve the sole purpose of the game, making the program fall in love. And besides, they aren’t trying to beat anything as easy as a mere program.

_ They are trying to beat a soul. _

Making Mirror fall in love isn’t a joke. It isn’t merely a game. There is a true soul locked within the game, the program built on one, and making it ( _ her! Please, ma’am, I am not an it!)  _ fall in love is an actual, real thing. 

The program is made to fall in love with someone who is good enough for it ( _ sigh) _ , someone, who can truly get to it ( _ Very well. I shall cease trying.),  _ someone, who can make it happy. Someone it can feel like is worth trusting, worth its faith and love.

None of them seems to be good enough. No one treats it like it wants to be treated.

And then.

_ Then there’s a new player.  _

John Constantine. 

No one has beat the game. It’s too picky, and it doesn’t like any of the suitors it’s had up do date.

_ John, _ though. John finds the game and, after hearing that no one has ever won it, decides to try because he is far too competitive for it to be healthy or smart. ( _ He was never smart. Intelligent, yes, but not smart. Everyone who knows anything more than his name about him would agree — even a program does. Even I agree with it.)  _ He plays, and plays, whenever he has the time to do so — and sometimes even when he doesn’t, but the point is, he is competitive and wants to prove that the game  _ can  _ be won. 

He doesn’t seem to succeed, though. 

A couple of weeks — or is it months? — pass by, and he’s finally ready to give up. Moments before he is about to click ‘uninstall’, he gets a new notification from the game that catches his interest. 

_ You are giving up, are you not? _

He blinks. That... is proper strange. And a bit creepy. Not demon-level creepy, but creepy regardless. Unsettling. 

_ As I expected you to. You are the same as everyone else. _

John wants to scoff at his phone and tell the game that no, he’s not the same as everyone else, the game was just made to be undefeated, impossible to win. He clicks on the notification anyway, leaving the game installed for now. 

He is faced with the image of a mirror as the application opens, but this time, he can see his own reflection on it. What the bloody hell. 

And if that wasn’t enough, there is also a picture of another person in the mirror… except they appear to be on the  _ other _ side of it. As though they were  _ behind  _ the mirror’s surface. It’s their back facing him though, so he doesn’t know what they actually look like, just that they seem petite (which he might be wrong about, it’s a phone screen and a game), and that they have black hair.

That’s literally all.

_ You are a failure. You could never win the game even if you tried your best. You are not worth my time. Farewell.  _

Something snaps inside John and he scowls.  _ Bitch, _ he wants to say, and about three seconds later he does. He sets everything else aside — he wasn’t doing anything that important currently anyway — and sits down to play.

“Fucking try me,” he snarls and resumes playing. 

_ What are you doing? _

“Winning the game. Bitch.”

_ You cannot win. _

“Uh-huh. Sure thing.”

_ This is pointless, you imbecile. _

“Do I sound like I care?”

_ Unfortunately, you do not. _

“Good, because that was the point. Now, I’m going to make you eat your words.”

A month passes by. John finds out the things Mirror likes (it isn’t easy — she prefers keeping silent because she seems to be irritated at him, which, fair, he supposes. He’s not giving up anyway), he keeps his promises and doesn’t go back on his word. He treats her properly. She isn’t quite sure whether it’s sad that it matters so much to her how someone treats her, isn’t sure what it tells about how she’s been treated before. 

He treats her like no one else before him.

He treats her like  _ a person.  _

Another month passes them. Mirror no longer despises him ( _ perhaps I never did. Perhaps it was all a test. Perhaps it was to find out whether he was worth my time, because perhaps he was interesting since the very beginning).  _ They spend hours at a time in each other’s presence, doing their own things. John studies magic and tests new things, Mirror says she can study the world if he gives her access to the internet. He’s pretty sure she could access the internet through his phone anyway but is merely trying to be polite. He gives her access. They don’t talk, but they enjoy one another’s presence. 

A third month passes. John questions Mirror’s existence — she shouldn’t seem so…  _ human _ minus the morals and the physical entity, right? Lexcorp announces it has successfully created artificial intelligence and will start inserting it to things every now and then to test how people like it. John doesn’t question Mirror’s ability to talk and exist anymore. They talk about life, about what they would like to gain and why they doubt such would ever happen — neither of them is whole. They’re both broken and hurt. Or, at least John is, and Mirror… well,  _ mirrors  _ that. Who knows.

A fourth month comes, and John realises he just needs to tell Mirror exactly what it  _ (No, she. You were doing so well.  _ **_She._ ** _ Not it, stop dehumanising me, please),  _ sorry, she ( _ thank you.)  _ wants to hear, treats her precisely like she would wish to be treated like. 

The fifth month arrives. 

He has won the game.

One day, he wakes up to a strange feeling. There is someone in his house. John gets out of bed, still missing his shirt as he walks through the house quietly, looking around himself to find out what is going on. He also has salt and lavender with him, just in case. There is a strange smell of his favourite biscuits in the air. 

He hasn’t baked in a while.

There is a lone sword laying in the hallway to the living room, and once he reaches it, he finds  _ more  _ swords. In fact, there are at least ten of them, and as he’s still trying to recover from that surprises, he notices a form on the sofa. A woman is sitting in his living room, smiling softly at his cats as she plays with them. 

She… There is something  _ eerily  _ similar to the way he felt on the day he meant to give up on the game. Her hairstyle is similar, and she’s sitting mostly her back to him — but not quite enough to keep her expression hidden. The only major difference is that there is no mirror this time, not between them, at least. 

That is when it hits him.

_ What the bloody hell, Lexcorp?  _

He curses under his breath and the woman turns to look at him, nodding as though greeting an old acquaintance — and perhaps to her, he is an old acquaintance. He’s not too sure, but it really,  _ really  _ fucking seems like the game wasn’t really just a game and the ‘Mirror’ wasn’t just a well-done program with artificial intelligence. 

Which, again, what the bloody hell.

The woman notices his arrival and turns to look at him, giving him a curt, polite nod. “Hello John,” she says, still playing with his cats, and he is, for the first time in a long time, unsure of what the fuck he’s supposed to do. Because seriously, what is he going to do about a woman that really shouldn’t be in his apartment, let alone even a real person, and all in all it’s just confusing and irritating. Infuriating. “It is a pleasure to meet you properly instead of talking to you from within the game.”

“What pleasure is there, really?” John instead asks. His first instinct would be to flirt with her — she's a pretty lady and has a good body and a nice voice, and at times he seems to have a thing for black-haired, pretty women — but she’s really not supposed to be here and  _ also  _ she has irritated him for four months now. 

“The game was designed so that the program — I — would become a true person should someone win the game. You have won, meaning I have fallen in love with you,” she says without blinking, and there is something empty in her eyes that shouldn’t be there but is regardless. It’s unsettling. She’s either not a true person or there is something vital missing, but he has no idea what it is.

“That’s nice. Now, wanna get out on your own or should I make you?”

“...What?”

“I only wanted to win. I  _ always _ win. I don’t care about you as a person, and honestly, it’s your own fault for making me  _ want  _ to win and actually be petty and spiteful about it because you decided to insult me and told me I couldn’t win.”

The woman’s brows furrow in confusion before she understands his words, and when he understands, she lets out a deep sigh and lets her eyes fall close. Her arms seem to go limp with the news, and the cat in her arms gets startled and jumps onto the floor. Her claws seem to dig painfully into the woman’s thighs but she doesn’t care. 

It should not be surprising. 

It should not make him feel anything, not feel strange and especially not  _ bad.  _ He doesn’t care about her. It should not matter either way.

In the end, the woman stands up, tiny wounds on her thighs from the cat’s claws, the tiniest trickle of blood running down her leg. She doesn’t say a word as she snaps her fingers and all of the swords around the house are suddenly gone, vanished into thin air, walking towards the front door with steps that feel heavier to him than they do to her. The second he hears the door close behind her, a big, floating message appears in the air in front of his eyes.

> _ Game Over: Thank You for Playing _

That is what it says, and it’s strange, but he doesn’t care. So was her existence. This isn’t anything compared to that. 

That night, he falls asleep having convinced himself that none of today matters, that he really doesn’t care about what he did. It was a game and he just played it — he had not agreed to any lifelong contracts or any relationships that the Mirror might’ve hoped for. It’s not his bloody fault she made herself hope for nonexistent things.

* * *

> _ Dear Player: You may have won your game… _

“How much work does a man need to put into getting a tiny bit of info from a bloody mafia?” John asked himself, cursing as he tried to figure out how to convince the head of said mafia — or was it yakuza? Some people called it yakuza because their reach branched over from Europe to the States to Japan, though no one was sure which way it actually went — to do what he needed. It was a mess, and especially so was getting the information and people and things that actually getting an audience (an  _ audience,  _ how old was this bloke?!) with the head of the mafia required. 

And seriously, he was pretty sure the mafia wasn’t that old — in fact, there was a lot of evidence supporting the theory the entire organisation was about two and half years old although no one he could get to talk knew the precise details of its birth — so how had they already spread this far? A big portion of the States, multiple European countries, and Japan. At the very least. Who knew if there were more countries involved.

As said. It was a  _ mess.  _

So, all in all, he needed to talk to the head of the mafia because they were said to be a person of intelligence, and John was obviously a person of intelligence, so maybe he could talk to them and get what he needed. They were, after all, involved in a case he was working on. He kind of needed them and their resources and at the very least for them to stop destroying the evidence he needed to solve the case itself, for fuck’s sake. 

When the guards in front of the head’s doors finally said he could go in, John was just about done with everyone in this bloody place. 

“Sorry to bother you, but your guys are pretty deep in a case I’m trying to solve,” he began, frowning at the back of the chair facing him. What was the problem with big bosses like this, always needing to be proper melodramatic and most of all  _ utterly predictable.  _ It was getting boring. Even so, he knew that pointing that out would probably get him a bullet in the skull so he didn’t say anything and instead continued with his little monologue. 

“Pretty much what I’m trying to say is that can ya get your men off the case or at least stop destroying the things I need to solve it? Or, better yet, you give me the info I need that your men have either taken or destroyed.”

“How would I benefit from that?” the voice asked, and he was certain that they were using a voice modifier, no one sounded like that without one. 

“Well, your mafia-ness,” he said and got a groan out of them, which he obviously counted as a win, “You’d get a handy-dandy wizard help you for a couple of times.” He hated being in debt to someone, but oh well. He really needed this case solved.

Instead of the  _ Hm, that’s interesting, tell me more _ or something of the like he was expecting to get, the air was instead filled with cold laughter. Then the chair began turning around. “Oh,  _ Constantine. _ It is cute that you think I need such. It is cute you assume I do not already have my own people with magic to do what is needed, or that I would ever rely on you in this reality.”

In the middle of the sentence, the voice changed from something unnatural and strange to one he could almost recognise, to a soft, twinkling voice he had heard somewhere before.

_ That  _ was the moment John Constantine knew he was screwed. 

A face belonging to someone he’d given no fucks about only a couple years before and pretty much sent out the door now sat in front of him, holding all the answers and all the power and connections and links he needed. All that he had thought he could maybe get out of the head of the mafia by being  _ John Constantine, the World’s greatest conman  _ as he tended to be called, except he wouldn’t get any of it because this was the woman he had not  _ given a fuck about  _ even when she’d said she was in love with him. 

If he had cared, if he’d let her stay, perhaps this wouldn’t be where they were now. 

_ “Shit.” _

There was nothing he could really do, but it wasn’t like he was just going to stand there and do nothing either. That wasn’t how he worked, not even when it might’ve been the smartest option.

“Soooo. Say, Luv—”

“Kagami.”

“...Say,  _ Kagami,  _ is there any way we can come to an agreement or a compromise about you giving me the info I need and making your men stop destroying the bloody evidence I need — more people are going to die if I don’t get this done?”

For a moment, he held a bit of hope before she sneered and looked at him down her nose despite being a great deal shorter than him.

“Do you truly believe you deserve any of that?” she asked, arching a brow, her expression so condescending it almost made him wince. It was like he was back at the house he lived in with his father when his father decided it was a good idea to blame John for anything he could think of if he appeared even a little selfish. That stung. He hated it. “Simply because I became a real person does  _ not  _ mean I was given a set of morals.”

_ Yeah, oh fuck. _

“Such I would have gotten with  _ whoever loved me,  _ but as it is, the person who won the game and was meant to do that exactly tossed me aside like a used lump; after all, to him, it was never anything but a game.”

He should have probably learnt by now that hurting people came back to bite him in the ass every single time. He still didn’t, and now he was going to pay for his mistake. At least, he was if she was in that mood. He couldn't get out of this one. Would he try? "Well, it's not like it's my fault you decided that falling for me of all people was a good idea?" Yes, he would.

“It is so easy to believe someone when they are telling you exactly what you want to hear, but that does not mean it is my fault it happened. In fact, you should know better.  _ Never play games with someone’s heart.” _

The anger and wrath and spite and bitterness dancing in her eyes was too much of a clear sign that she was not happy with him and will be happier only if she got to make him pay and suffer for what he did. Who knew, if she didn't have morals, death wasn't really off the table either. He could understand it, okay, but he didn't want it and didn't want to stay to see how that’s going to happen, so he tried to get away. The security guards cut his exits. Magic didn't seem to work for some reason either. 

Yeah. He was screwed.

> ... _ but you lost her heart. _

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it although it was a bit shorter than usually.
> 
> Oh, and do join the (newly created) [Constagami server](https://discord.gg/k3MrJUFjjS) on Discord!


End file.
